Indoor Staten Island track nearing finish line

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. --- On a day fit for neither man nor beast — but just possibly tolerable to runners — the city broke ground yesterday on a long-awaited indoor track for Staten Island.

With the mercury cracking 90 again after a one-day respite, dozens of elected officials, community activists and running enthusiasts joined Mayor Michael Bloomberg for the ceremony at Ocean Breeze Park yesterday.

The facility will feature a state-of-the-art track and seating for 2,500 spectators.

The 135,000-square-foot indoor track planned for the Capodanno Boulevard site will be one of the premier running facilities on the East Coast. The eight-lane, 200-meter “Mondo” track — the same surface used in nine Olympics — will feature an innovative hydraulic system that will transform it into a six-lane “banked” track suitable for any competition, from amateur to professional. The building will have seating for 2,500 spectators, a concession stand and cardio and weight rooms.

COST: $70 MILLION

It is scheduled for completion by the end of 2012, at a cost of $70 million.

“This will be an exemplary track. People throughout the United States will want to come here,” said Vin Gattullo, the new president of Staten Island Track Running and Community (SITRAC), a community group that has been advocating for an indoor track in the borough for more than 15 years.

The 110–acre site, once part of the Staten Island University Hospital campus, includes part of a 26-acre parcel of state parkland that was transferred to the city in December. The city also will set aside part of the 10 acres apportioned for the facility for two long-jump pits, a pole vault, a high jump and two shot-put and weight-throwing areas.

The site’s environmentally friendly designs — such as a “green” roof that will disperse rain into an adjacent wetland — also won awards from both the New York American Society of Landscape Architects and the New York City Public Design Commission. Though the foundation will be poured on-site, most of the building will be prefabricated in New Jersey.

“We certainly didn’t have facilities like this when I was growing up,” said Gattullo, who is 79.

He recalled having to travel to Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan or to Red Hook, Brooklyn, to compete as a young man, running on rough, unforgiving cinders. Though track surfaces are much improved, little else has changed on the Island. There is still a dire need for a year-round facility for the borough’s 17 track teams and approximate 14,000 competitive runners.

Former Staten Island Borough President Guy Molinari accumulated $12 million for an indoor track at Ocean Breeze Park — only to see that money vanish during the post-Sept. 11 recession. Current BP James Molinaro, along with SITRAC and other elected officials, kept asking Bloomberg to restore the project to the city’s capital plan. Bill Welsh, former president of SITRAC, gathered 5,000 signatures on petitions for an indoor track titled “Get Us Out of the Cold” and sent them to Bloomberg and Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe.

And the mayor — as many community leaders credit — listened. Ocean Breeze Park is one of eight regional parks Bloomberg made part of PlaNYC, his ambitious “long-term sustainability” initiative. The city will fund the entire project.

“While the mayor is being so generous, we’d like to ask for $3 million more for a cross-country track,” Molinaro quipped during the groundbreaking ceremony yesterday.

Parks and SITRAC will jointly manage the facility, and will charge rent for large sporting events and membership fees to residents who want to use it to train or work out.

It’s likely to going be a popular spot. The borough’s largest recreation facility — the Cromwell Center in Tompkinsville — recently collapsed and its future remains in limbo, while other planned recreation centers in Clifton and Stapleton have been pushed back indefinitely.